Playtika Holding Corp. (NASDAQ:PLTK) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Matt Cost: Great. Thank you. And then just on the first quarter step up.

Craig Abrahams: In terms of marketing, we don’t €“ we don’t give kind of quarter-over-quarter guidance. I think what I would say is, we do invest and find the first quarter is a good quarter for marketing investments but no specific guidance.

Matt Cost: Great. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Douglas Creutz with Cowen & Company. You may proceed.

Douglas Creutz: Hey, thank you. We’re two months into 2023. It looks to us based on some of our work that you’re having a pretty healthy start to the year, particularly Bingo Blitz and Solitaire Grand Harvest. So, could you comment a bit about what you’re seeing in the first two months, and how that sort of folds into your thinking about guidance for the year? Thank you.

Robert Antokol: Sure. So, 2022 was a year where we saw downward pressure throughout the year, but I think we started to see things turn around in the middle of the fourth quarter. And so you’ve seen positive improvements over the last few months. And obviously that was taken into consideration when we provided guidance. And so while we’ve seen some positive progression over the last few months, there’s not much we can comment further on in this call.

Douglas Creutz: Okay. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Stephen Ju with Credit Suisse. You may proceed.

Stephen Ju: Okay. Thank you. So, I guess if you’re having difficulty scaling new franchises, we would have to think that a similar backdrop as prevalent for other companies as well. So, has the environment changed in terms of assets becoming available for you to potentially acquire. And secondarily, I mean given the current environment, has your attitude towards running more in-app advertising to generate more revenue changed at all? Thanks.

Robert Antokol: So regarding the ads, we are not changing our policy. We never believed in the hedged revenues. We tried, I can say here we tried to do a few tests, but it’s never worked well for us. And especially when you look in the environment today in the market, when the CPIs are high, so today if you are a paying user in app, your retention is much better, much stronger than all other ad revenues. So it makes your game healthy. It makes your revenue more stable. And actually one of the main things that we achieved this year was bringing more paying users to our circle. And this was one of our targets. So, this is — right now you can see the advantage of Playtika that we are focusing on in app and in a purchase. And it helps us to grow our users and help us to bring more paying users. And this is a big advantage that we have on our competitors.

Craig Abrahams: And Stephen to your first part of your question on the M&A environment related to marketing, I think there’s two sides to it. The first side is, you’re seeing fewer startups being successful in their ability to scale new games, which obviously creates fewer M&A opportunities. On the other side of that, given the difficulty to scale, you’re seeing opportunities to invest at better valuations and potentially acquire companies as they struggle in this environment. So I think those are the kind of two sides of the coin there.

Stephen Ju: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Drew Crum with Stifel. You may proceed.

Drew Crum: Okay. Thanks. Hey guys, good morning. As you enter 2023, can you address how the company is prioritizing uses of cash? You’ve announced a proposal to make a fairly sizable acquisition. In light of that, what leverage multiple are you comfortable? And then separately, on the direct-to-consumer platform, it’s a little more than 23% of revenue in 2022. What are your expectations for 2023? And is your longer-term goal still to be at 30%. Thanks.